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Friday, November 26, 2010

Braunhart Mania Begins

When I started this family research, I had never even heard the name Braunhart.In fact the first time I even saw the name was in one of my relatives death certificates that I had purchased from the State of California Archives, where it was spelled Braundardt. Subsequently, I was unable to find the name Braundardt anywhere, in free or subscription databases.

Some time in 2004, through familysearch.org, the LDS church free website – a reference to the marriage between my great grandfather Isidore Heyman and his bride Ernestine Bernstein was found in a database of weddings in Manhattan, New York.I had now found another great grandmother!The database also mentioned the names of their parents – so now I knew the names of 4 more great great grandparents.This is getting awesome!

This was my inspiration then to purchase Ernestine’s death certificate.

TIP – Buy Selected Death Certificates

As I have found out since, the quality of the data on the death certificate is limited to the memory of the mourning relative providing the information; yet death certificates do provide a lot of information.One can spend hundreds and thousands of dollars buying these, but if you are selective – you can get a lot of data with less investment.Contact your county or state to get them.

It was here that the Braundardt name first appeared in print.As I had written earlier – I had received an article about Samuel Braunhart, and coupling that information with the marriage information for my great grandmother Ernestine along with her death certificate yielded my next great great grandmother – Sara Braunhart Bernstein.My dad’s cousin Gloria recalled a couple of stories about her during my visit to her, but now I knew her EXACT name.

Using the name “Braunhart” as a guide, I now began searching everything in sight to find more about this family.

It is still 2004, and I am beginning to feel an obsession with this family – maybe because there was a feeling of impending “riches” of information – maybe something else.Maybe a connection that I could not understand at the time.

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Intent of This Site

Everyone in genealogy research starts as a beginner and may need help to get some direction. There is an overwhelming amount of books and other information available and much on the Internet. The intent of this site is to tell my story of family history research and the nuggets that I have learned along the way.